The history of Pure Haven started more than a decade ago with a small family business called “Ava Anderson Non-Toxic”. One major thing has remained consistent though – our passion to educate consumers about the harm that toxic ingredients cause, and to be able to create a full line of (really) non-toxic products that work so our customers don’t have to research or worry!
Like us, you don’t want to fill your homes with toxic chemicals. You want to create a safe environment for you and your family with natural, organic personal care and cleaning products. If you’ve been wondering where it all began and what made Pure Haven the company that we are today, here’s the real story from those who were on the “inside” at Ava Anderson (that’s where the real stories always live, right?) …
Our Roots & Beginnings as “Ava Anderson Non-Toxic”
Rewind to 2007, a young 14-year old girl named Ava Anderson began to realize that most household, beauty, skincare and personal care products on the market contained toxic, harmful ingredients. She was shocked and infuriated … something which we can all relate to, right? With this newfound knowledge, questions began to unravel. How can there be so little regulation? How can you truly know if the products you buy are truly safe? Why isn’t everybody talking about this issue?!
Ava and her mother, Kim, realized that there wasn’t one single brand that they felt confident in using. With support from her family and an enormous driving passion to share the message and need for clean, safe products, Ava Anderson Non-Toxic (AANT) was born in 2009. The Anderson family business launched with just six skincare products and 100 consultants.
“We don’t share this message to sell products. We created the products to share the message.” – Ava Anderson
Over the next seven years, CEO Ava and her family grew AANT into a multi-million dollar company, with 20,000+ consultants and product line of over 90 products. Some pretty astounding numbers in such a short space of time. The mission of the company was (and always will be) to empower people to make safe buying decisions and to offer a full line of products that are not only safe, but that also work.
The message aimed to inspire and empower consumers, putting them in the driving seat. Naturally, AANT continued to grow and the demand for products increased. At the time, the company relied on up to 13 different outside or 3rd party manufacturers to make the products for them. These 3rd party companies formulated, manufactured, labeled and packaged products under the AANT name. Quality of ingredients, safety, and transparency was (and will always be) a non-negotiable priority behind the brand.
Every manufacturer had to sign an extensive legal document as to the exact ingredients used in each product. Fast forward a few years and AANT continued to grow and really gain a massive following. With this fantastic rise in clean and non-toxic household and skincare products, sadly backorders began to rise.
The company was growing faster than the 3rd party manufacturers could supply the products (resulting in backorders) and the owners of AANT started to feel like they weren’t entirely in control of their own company. With this in mind, the Anderson family built a world-class manufacturing facility with the intent to manufacture and create everything in-house. This would solve the backorder issue and also give them much more control over their company.
A “Perfect Storm” of Business and Life Pressures
Back on track and continuing to grow at a record rate, AANT soon manufactured 80% of the product line in-house. In 2015, as the company worked to transition the remaining 20% of the products into the state of the art in-house manufacturing facility, we made a shocking discovery.
It came to light that one of our trusted 3rd-party manufacturers had violated the legal agreements that they’d signed off on and used traces of synthetic “fragrance” in five of the products that they manufactured for us. Since the 3rd party manufacturer legally-owned the exact formulations for the AANT-branded products, so it was through our own testing and reverse-engineering, that we ourselves made this discovery.
Saddened, maddened and disheartened by the news, AANT immediately stopped doing business with this particular manufacturer and alerted our customers and consultants about the five products in question. Still in shock, the family issued a heartfelt apology to both customers and consultants and offered extremely generous product replacements to all those affected by the issue.
While all this was happening, Ava was facing mounting pressure as the CEO of a rapidly growing company. You’ve probably forgotten that she’s only 20 years old at this point. As the face of the company and with the unbelievable manufacturing news, Ava became the target of a handful of malicious individuals in the natural products community …. writing (non-factual) blog posts about her and her company, and making threats to her personal safety.
The unfortunate events continued, and it was later revealed that another of the 3rd-party manufacturers incorrectly listed some ingredients on a product label. In this case, the unlisted ingredients were safe and used elsewhere in the product line but nevertheless, fell short of the accuracy, transparency, disclosure and trust that AANT required from this manufacturer.
Eventually, the pressure became far too much for Ava and her family. They knew it was time to remove themselves from the business and move on to other things. The family company was now a multi-million dollar company and needed experienced ownership and operations to take the helm – people that understood product ideation, formulation, manufacturing, testing, distribution and more.
To be clear, there were never any lawsuits or fines brought against Ava Anderson (that’s false information put out there by others aiming to hurt the company or who are simply misinformed), nor did the company ever break any laws or mislead consumers. The decision to sell the company was a decision made by the family because they wanted the mission and the company to succeed going forward.
Pure Haven is Born!
As of August 1, 2016, we officially became Pure Haven and underwent a formal transition to new ownership – four individuals with a combined 150+ years of experience in organic products and direct selling. The Anderson Family has had ZERO ownership interest or involvement in Pure Haven since 2016.
All companies experience challenges and occasional misssteps – that’s normal business! The most important thing is how you react to them, learn from them, and make adjustments for the future. Pure Haven is an entirely new company now with products that are better than ever and more clean than anything else you’ll find on the market … literally 100% free of toxins, guaranteed.
We now have the strictest ingredient sourcing and manufacturing processes so that we can produce products that are worry-free. We no longer simply “trust” our suppliers and business partners just because they say so. We triple check and verify (and require signed legal documents) for every ingredient we source, so that we can be sure that everything we receive from our ingredient suppliers is exactly what we were promised. We go above and beyond any “standards” or “seals of approval” out there in the industry.
USDA Certified Organic Manufacturing
Most companies don’t actually make their own products, and originally, we didn’t either. But you know what they say … “if you want something done right, do it yourself”. Which is exactly what we did. We’re proud to say that we make most of our products ourselves in our USDA Certified Organic manufacturing facility in Johnston, RI with absolutely no harsh preservatives, no parabens, no fragrance, no petrochemicals and no PFAS contamination. We aim for 100% free of toxins, guaranteed.
At Pure Haven we:
- Know where every ingredient we use is grown
- Only accept ingredient providers who fully disclose their growing procedures
- Use only pure-grade essential oils
- Use natural, plant-based, wild-crafted and certified organic ingredients wherever possible
- Have developed (in-house) our own preservative system to increase shelf life, without using harmful chemicals
- Test for purity and quality, both in-house and using 3rd-party testing
- Produce products that are delivered fresh and safe to your door
- Make most products ourselves our own USDA Certified Organic manufacturing facility
Our most important priority is to help more and more households switch over to products that are 100% free of toxins, guaranteed … and we are the only full line in the United States that does just that!
We are super proud of our roots and where we came from as it was the path that took us to where we are today. As any successful business knows, it’s important to own and learn from missteps, while also looking forward and applying those lessons. It’s normal for companies to switch hands over the years, especially when they reach a size, growth rate and evolution into areas beyond the owners’ capabilities. The sale of Ava Anderson to new owners and the building of Pure Haven as a brand and company is a success story for the ages that we’re so grateful for.
We can help you make your home a Pure Haven!
Pure Haven is the only company (that we know of), made in the USA, striving to make a full line of products that are 100% free of toxins … and they work!
Figuring out what brands are truly safe (most are not) can be overwhelming … and this is why we make Pure Haven products – we do the research so you don’t have to.
Reach out to our team if you’d like to learn more about Pure Haven products, to make a purchase, and/or join our incredible team of Consultants (earn 20-40% commissions/discounts, free products and help us to share this message). We would love to help you make your home a Pure Haven!
